Poll: Food for Thought on Digital Game Value

[Negatempest]

I don't want this to turn into a flame thread, but I am curious about what our own actions.

Iwata, as we all know by now, has already stated that keeping digital price the same as hard copies keeps the games value up.

Of course we have many who disagree with this and the big company that regularly discounts digital games is Steam.

What the comment by Iwata makes me think about is how many of us would even consider purchasing a game at full price if the option was there to get it at a cheaper deal a few months down the road.

I can honestly say that many of my Steam games I would never of bought, I would of had half of them at best. The sales are what I usually wait for. But can we honestly say that if we had a choice, and not poor, we would buy Steam games at full price? Would we value the Steam games we have now more so if they could only be purchased at full price?

I leave that up to each one of us, but I will say that Iwata is not completely wrong.

EDIT: The reason I say Iwata is not completely wrong is that when we work/save for something and finally get it we, as humans, tend to cherish the item more. Should we get the item easily, we tend to brush it off. Aka, backlog.

Edit2: I will specify more. The reason I used Steam is that when it comes to discount digital games, Steam comes to mind more than any other. The main question is this. Does one cherish a paid full price digital game over a person's discount digital games?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Depends heavily on the game, and the information I have going into it.
Last games I bought full price on Steam were X-COM: Enemy Unknown, and Borderlands 2 (both 2K published, ironically. But they haven't jerked me around enough to really piss me off yet).

But everything else in recent memory (or the last year), I've waited for a discount.

 

[TehCookie]

When I payed full price I got a physical copy, which the only two games were Left 4 Dead and Skyrim. I've stopped buying Steam games because of DRM. However I buy PSN classics because they're so cheap (and hard to find) and wouldn't pay the new price.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

I don't buy games full price, at all. Whether it's a PC, console or handheld title. Or, at least, I do so very rarely. I even shop around for Nintendo games; don't get them unless I can find them for half the launch price. Games just aren't worth £40 to me, they simply don't entertain me enough to justify that amount of money.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I'll buy it at the price I think it's worth after I've done my research, if you keep that 4-5hour nonsense at full price the only difference will be you are never getting a penny from me.

Not really sure what the "game value" comment is about other then stating the painfully obvious, yes if you keep the price of a game high... the price of that game will be high, is that the desired effect then? Keeping games at premium prices so you get your exclusivity club pride?

 

[Jamash]

I only buy games on Steam if they're on sale.

When I'm buying a new PC game (even if it requires Steam and the disc is basically worthless since most of the game will be re-downloaded through Steam) then I'll buy a physical copy at retail because it's always cheaper than Steam's prices for new game and you often get more content for you'll money (e.g. pre-order bonuses, artwork, collectible trinkets and audio CDs or video DVDs).

Steam's sale are great, but it's soundly beaten by retail and physical game packages in terms of value for money and content.

 

[aozgolo]

I only buy full-price games if I have been waiting for them for awhile in advance, like Skyrim I bought at full value. I absolutely NEVER buy digital games if the price is the exact same as a physical copy, even if they are registered through Steam essentially making them digital, but for the same price I'm also getting an actual physical object, usually with a manual and sometimes other extras. I can't see any justification for purchasing a digital game at full retail price, and I think this is the big reason why most console online stores fail, with games released 5 years ago still retailing digitally at the same price they were when new they are trying to FORCE the game value, which in reality decreases the number of units sold because nobody wants to pay that much for a game that old (by console life standards)

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I don't buy digital games at launch. I find them to be almost always more expensive compared to boxed titles. Which is fucking stupid because it defeats the point of digital distribution. Why would I pay more for less.

 

[kilenem]

The only reason I downloaded steam was because Portal was free. Then I felt guilty and bought TF2. Great decision.

 

[Caiphus]

Taking a look through the last 20 games that I've played.. (and I can't reeeeally remember), these are the ones I bought at full price:

Skyrim
The Wolf Among Us
Dragon Age II (oof)
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Papers, Please
Rogue Legacy
Far Cry 3

So that's 7/20. Roughly halfway between 25% and 50%. We'll go with 25%.

Out of the other 13, I would probably have only bought Crusader Kings II at full price. Maybe Dirt 3 and the Legend of Grimrock too. All the others were only really ever going to be discount/price drop purchases.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I only buy games on Steam if they're on sale.

When I'm buying a new PC game (even if it requires Steam and the disc is basically worthless since most of the game will be re-downloaded through Steam) then I'll buy a physical copy at retail because it's always cheaper than Steam's prices for new game and you often get more content for you'll money (e.g. pre-order bonuses, artwork, collectible trinkets and audio CDs or video DVDs).

Steam's sale are great, but it's soundly beaten by retail and physical game packages in terms of value for money and content.

Bingo, for new releases it's generally cheaper to go to a store and pick up a physical copy than get it directly from Steam.

However once it goes on a daily deal during a annual sale you'll be hard pressed to find cheaper options.

 

[FoolKiller]

I have not spent double digits dollars on any game on Steam. I have over 100 games.

PS. Dear Escapist. WTF is with the stupid captcha that is in a language that I don't know and can't answer

 

[EyeReaper]

yeah, pretty much every game in my steam library I've gotten through humble bundles, and the ones I didn't are all <$10 anyways (LIke Poker night at the Inventory)
It wouldn't really matter to me if digital nintendo games are cheaper though, I like owning physical copies of my games. Can't get a collector's edition of a digital copy.

 

[Billy D Williams]

I got a 140ish game library on Steam, and for full price I got... Fallout New Vegas. That's it I think.

 

[Something Amyss]

I can count the number of games I've paid double digits for on one hand. Full price, even less so.

To be fair, I've shied away from full price retail more and more in the same years I've been on Steam.

 

[Moonmover]

The only time I've used Steam for anything is when I bought a physical copy of "Skyrin." My Internet connection at home is very slow, and Steam takes long enough here to start up that it would often just give up and time out. Yes, there is a toggle-able option to have Steam start up in offline mode, but that feature only seems to work about half the time. I ended up selling the game and buying the Xbox 360 version.

As for non-steam digital purchases: I only do that if the game looks really, really interesting and there is no other legal way to play it. (So far, that's meant just "Mount & Blade" and "Minecraft," both of which I bought for cheap while they were still in beta. It seems odd to pay the same amount of money for a download as for a disc, since downloads cost less to the publisher (they don't have to pay for the box or manual) and you can't resell them.

Plus, I like the feeling of having a big, nice-looking bookshelf full of games in my den.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Personally, I only buy full-price if I actually have a burning desire to play it right this second; and having built up a backlog, that's not often.

Papers, Please was the last one, and that wasn't exactly expensive.

 

[insertcleverphrase]

even at full price I prefer to buy digital rather than physical, as the developers get a bigger cut through digital. I tend to vote with my wallet, for example i waited for Spec Ops:The Line to come off being on sale before buying it at full price (which was only $30 at that time) I wanted to reward the devs for making an amazing game, and also for releasing it on mac. same with the walking dead, bought it at full price.